Who's in charge?...

We are in the process of remodeling portions of our house. As such, I have been spending a lot of time at either Lowe's or Home Depot. There was an interesting incident during a recent trip to Home Depot that got me to thinking. I was in the plumbing section, standing amidst a virtual forest of faucets on display. While pondering the vast amount of choices before my eyes I noticed a little girl, about two, walk by. Her mother was about fifteen feet behind her and, as she walked by, said to her daughter,

"Tuscany. Will you please hold my hand so I don't get lost?"

Eager to take a break from rationalizing the amount of money I was to spend on faucets, I turned to take a closer look at this woman. She appeared, from a cursory scan, to be relatively intelligent and certainly in control of her mental faculties. I must admit that I immediately became perplexed. For I not only found it difficult to believe that this lady could get lost in Home Depot, but I was mystified at the way her polite requests were so rudely ignored by her master. By this time the daughter had cleared our aisle and was rounding the corner into the next one. The mother, once again, vainly repeated her appeal for assistance from her daughter. For all I know, she's still wandering around that Home Depot waiting for her daughter to acquiese.

The electoral college of American Idol...

Elton John: 'American Idol' Is Racist

Singing legend Elton John this week joined the chorus of voices decrying “American Idol” as racist. John criticized the talent show’s voting process, carried out not by the trio of on-air judges but by the American viewing public. “The three people I was really impressed with — and they just happened to be black, young female singers — all seem to be landing in the bottom three,” the British singer said Tuesday during a promotional appearance for his concert at New York’s Radio City Music Hall. …“They have great voices. The fact that they’re constantly in the bottom three — and I don’t want to set myself up here — but I find it incredibly racist.” The racism controversy first erupted last Wednesday when Jennifer Hudson, who scored super-high marks with the judges, was ousted from the competition. Hudson is African-American. She and two other female black singers all got the lowest number of phoned-in votes. “I don’t know what it was based on, but it wasn’t talent,” Hudson told Fox News. “Because if it was, all three of us wouldn’t have been in the bottom three. Maybe one, but not all three.” Her booting-off prompted host Ryan Seacrest to remind viewers that the program wasn’t a popularity contest — it was about finding a gifted singer. The “Idol” winner gets a record deal.

If the latest results of the voting process on American Idol indicate that the viewing public is racist, then what are we to make of the crowds of adoring fans that flock to support the innocent-until-proven-guilty Michael Jackson and Kobe Bryant? The real issue here is that the likes of Ryan Seacrest and Co. actually consider the voting process used by American Idol to be - valid. We live in an age where who gets to stay and who gets booted can be decided, by the American viewing public, through instantaneous telephone voting. Well… America decided, and the “professionals” didn’t quite like the way it turned out, did they? Kind of puts the American Music Awards in a different light now doesn’t it? Be careful what you wish for.

Left leaning and lost...

In case you haven't seen this mentioned on another blog already, check out the article, Pat Tillman: Dumb jock, baby killer?, by Ben Shapiro regarding some not so flattering comments the Left has been spewing out in reference to Pat Tillman. Here's an excerpt:

What would you call Pat Tillman, the former Arizona Cardinal football player killed in Afghanistan? A hero? An inspiring example of American military men and women? A model of principled strength? How about a "dumb jock"? A "baby killer"? A "dumb-a--"? A victim of "brainwashing"? If you were a regular reader of Indymedia.org, odds are that you'd put him in the latter group. You'd think that Pat Tillman was a boob, a complete dimwit at best -- you might even believe that Pat Tillman was an evil person and deserved what he got.

Why bother?...

Kerry Takes Communion Despite Cardinal's Comment.

BOSTON — Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry received communion from a Catholic priest Saturday, one day after a top Vatican cardinal said politicians who support abortion rights should be denied the Eucharist.

What was the point of that? Oh yeah, I forgot - "While I'm personally opposed to..." - you know, the separation of logic and state, etc., etc., etc.

Conspiracy...

I’m really out of touch with the latest fashions. Call it old age or whatever, but I don’t quite have the time to be concerned with such trivialities anymore (implication: I once did concern myself with such trivialities). Anyway, what’s up with guys having a shaved head and sunglasses sitting above the eyes? While some may think it’s the latest trend, I think it’s a cover for an upcoming alien invasion.

Run that by me again Maxine?...

Maxine Waters, councilwoman for the city of Los Angeles, had this to say during the recent march for so-called abortion rights:

I have to march because my mother could not have an abortion.

Dense does not even begin to describe this. Hat tip to: Moteworthy.com

What do Christians believe?...

Update: revised 1st paragraph per X's comment below... In recent discussions regarding Theistic Evolution I argue that it is logically inconsistent to believe in both Christianity and Theistic Evolution. I've had some people tell me that I am in error due to the fact that there are Christians around who claim to believe in both Christianity and Theistic Evolution. I think there is something a bit twisted with that reasoning in that it tends to beg the question. That is, just because one claims to hold to both beliefs does not necessarily dictate that such a claim is logically coherent. Consider Albert Mohler's recent article, The Alliance of Baptists Affirms Same-Sex Marriage.

Supporters of same-sex marriage have been aided in their quest to normalize homosexuality by a constellation of liberal religious groups--including some of the historic Christian denominations. These groups now serve as theological enablers for the homosexual movement's rejection of Christian morality. ...The Alliance directed its most critical words at Christian denominations that oppose same-sex marriage. "As Christians and as Baptists, we particularly lament the denigration of our gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender sisters and brothers in this debate by those who claim to speak for God." ...The Alliance's original covenant began with a call for its members to claim "the freedom of the individual, led by God's Spirit within the family of faith, to read and interpret the Scriptures, relying on the historical understanding by the church and on the best methods of modern biblical study." That wording was carefully crafted to allow the group and its members to deny the authority and truthfulness of difficult biblical texts dealing with issues like sexuality, while claiming to be "led by God's Spirit" and relying on historical interpretation and the "best methods" of modern biblical scholarship.

What would happen if we were to apply the same type of logic that supporters of TE use in this situation?

Fallout from the Pro-Abortion Protest...

Check Joe Carter's thoughts on the recent pro-abortion rally held in Washington, D.C.

The Word of God...

I've just gotten into Leland Ryken's The Word of God in English, and it appears that it will be a good read. Ryken approaches the topic not as a translator but as a literary critic. His intent is to inform us as to the need for integrity within the presentation of the words of the Bible. Such a presentation, he posits, must remain faithful to the intent of the author. He states,

The Bible is a written book and as such shares certain qualities with other books. This is not to deny that the Bible is unique, having been inspired by God in a way that other books are not. In format, though, the Bible is an anthology of diverse literary writings, similar to other anthologies. The writers of the Bible themselves signal their awareness of literary genres (types of writings) by referring with technical precision to such forms as chronicle, psalm, song, proverb, parable, apocalypse, and many others. In keeping with the nature of the Bible itself, therefore, there is much that we can learn about how to handle the Bible in translation by paying attention to how we treat literary texts beyond the Bible. If anything, our reverence for the biblical text should be higher than the respect we accord to Shakespeare and Hawthorne. ...Translation of course introduces an element of variability into the situation, so that we can debate whether this or that English word best captures the meaning of the original. But there remains a decisive difference between essentially literal translations that attempt to convey the exact meaning of the original words and other translations that do not feel obliged to reproduce the precise wording of the original. (emphasis in original)

On the Abortion Rights march...

Check Moteworthy.com for Latrell's post, Addendum to Reid's "March" post:

My personal vote for the "classiest" placard at the March for Women's Lives was one that appeared on a sign brandished by washed-up actress Cybil Shepherd. It read:

"Too bad John Ashcroft's mother didn't believe in abortion"

Talk about the politics of personal destruction. Seeing as Ashcroft was born well before Roe v Wade, had his mother been inclined to have had an abortion, she probably would have used one of those coat hangers like those that many of the marchers were carrying yesterday (and in a proverbial "back-alley"). According to the abortion rights movement, using a coat hanger was not exactly a safe procedure, but I guess the health of John Ashcroft's mother doesn't really concern them that much.

What if Janet Reno held to the same point of view as John Ashcroft? Substituting her name in place of his on Shepherd's placard would be consistent with Shepherd's view of abortion... but it would run completely against the so-called "March for Women's Lives."

When 2 + 2 = 5...

Check Dembski’s Explanatory Filter Delivers a False Positive at the Panda's Thumb. Matt Young criticizes Bill Dembski's explanatory filter methodology for determining intelligent design:

Dembski’s vaunted explanatory filter is no more than a flow chart designed to distinguish events of low probability. If the probability of an event is low enough and if Dembski can discern a pattern, then he concludes that the event must have been the product of design. Dembski admits that the explanatory filter may produce a false negative (fail to infer design where design exists) but claims it will never produce a false positive (infer design where none exists). In this article, I will give a real example wherein the explanatory filter could have yielded a false positive. According to an article in Science [Quinn Eastman, “Crib Death Exoneration Could Usher in New Gene Tests,” Science, 20 June 2003, p. 1858], a British woman lost three babies to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS or crib death) within four years. The Crown Prosecution Service applied the explanatory filter as follows: One death is tragic; two deaths are suspicious; three deaths are murder. The woman was prosecuted. According to the BBC, the rate of SIDS in England and Wales is less than 0.5 death per 1000 live births. In effect, prosecutors reasoned that the probability of three SIDS deaths was 0.00053, or approximately 10-10. They concluded that this probability was so small that a design inference was warranted, and the woman was charged. What the prosecutors did not know or ignored was that SIDS may be a genetic disease that runs in families. Indeed, the woman’s grandmother testified that three of her children died of unexplained causes before the ages of 6 weeks (in the 1940’s, before SIDS was recognized).

I posted a comment questioning the relevance of using an event with a probability calculated at 10^-10 as indicative of the failure of Dembski's explanatory filter. Dembski stated, in Intelligent Design,

...The French mathematician Emile Borel proposed 10^-50 as a universal probability bound below which chance could definitely be precluded - that is, any specified event as improbable as this could not be attributed to chance. ...In The Design Inference I justify a more stringent universal probability bound of 10^-150 based on the number of elementary particles in the observable universe, the duration of the observable universe until its heat death and the Planck time.

It would appear that an event with a probability of 10^-10 being falsely attributed to design falls outside the boundary of 10^-150 proposed by Dembski. Simply put, 10^-10 ≠ 10^-150. One response claimed that the probability could be met as such:

If, for example, the genetic disease makes it 100% likely that any child born from that mother will die, whereas the overall incidence of the disease is not 5 per thousand but 1 per million, and the mother had 25 babies which all died, then that meets the probability level of Dembski’s filter.

The only problem with that explanation is that the mother didn't have 25 babies (to her overwhelming joy), so the example is conjecture. Another comment was:

The 1e-150 number is Dembski’s “universal probability bound”. Probabilities smaller than this do not require justification of a “local small probability” bound.

This was a bit confusing since there was no reference I found in Dembski's book differentiating between a universal and local small boundary. The good news is that Dembski's work is being tested against data from current research.

New Links...

I've had Moteworthy.com on the Evangelical link list for a few weeks. I now see that they have New Covenant listed in their own links section... I'm honored. Also, Jollyblogger has linked to this site as well. The following C. S. Lewis quote graces his blog: Grace substitutes a full, childlike, and delighted acceptance of our Need, a joy in total dependence. We become "jolly beggars." Give his site a visit.

He must've been in the front row...

What's up with this list of every date that Jimmy Carter attended church while he was POTUS?

"Lord?" or "Homeboy?"...

Is Jesus your Lord? Or is Jesus your homeboy? Or do you think he’s, somehow, both? In various rants I have discussed that the casual attitude Evangelicals tend to show towards the creator of the universe is indicative of our general lack of understanding of His being. Criticisms to my complaints are typically along the lines that I am simply not appreciating the different cultural mores (e.g., hip-hop, or post-modern) present in our world. These criticisms continue despite the fact that I have noted that this lack of reverence seems to show up in virtually all Evangelical circles. As point of fact, though, I have never criticized the sincerity of hip-hop’sters or PoMos with regards to their love for Christ… I’ve just been highlighting particular instances where they lack discretion with their casual attitude. The following comment from Rev. Mike's site kind of sums up the response that I (and Joe @ Evangelical Outpost, and Rev. Mike) usually get on this topic: "I'm not into casual worship but I'm into come-as-you-are worship. There's nothing I can wear that impresses God. I come realizing I have nothing to offer except that I'm clinging to the one who makes me righteous. That's anything but casual. The minute I think a tie or a dress makes someone a better worshipper, I've missed the point." Sigh. Wouldn’t it be great if we could find out how people, who actually knew Jesus while he was here on earth, viewed their relationship with him? Wait a minute! We can! Why not just reference instances in the Bible where people actually interacted with Jesus? For starters, let's take a cursory look at the person who wouldn't have necessarily been considered one of Jesus’ close friends, but would have conversed with him nonetheless. For example:

And a leper approached, and bowed low before him, saying, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” – Matthew 8:2 When he entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him asking for help: “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, in terrible anguish.” Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.” But the centurion replied, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. Instead, just say the word and my servant will be healed. – Matthew 8:5-8 Then an expert in the law came to him and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” – Matthew 8:19 Another of the disciples said to him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” – Matthew 8:21 As he was saying these things, a ruler came, bowed low before him, and said, “My daughter has just died, but come and lay your hand on her and she will live.” – Matthew 9:18 As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him, shouting, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!” When he went into the house, the blind men came to him. Jesus said to them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” They said to him, “Yes, Lord.” – Matthew 9:27-28 A Canaanite woman from that area came and cried out, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is horribly demon-possessed!” But he did not answer her a word. Then his disciples came and begged him, “Send her away, because she keeps on crying out after us.” So he answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and bowed down before him and said, “Lord, help me!” “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs,” he said. “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” – Matthew 15:22-27 When they came to the crowd, a man came to him, knelt before him, and said, “Lord, have mercy on my son, because he has seizures and suffers terribly, for he often falls into the fire and into the water. – Matthew 17:14-15

Notice any particular pattern going on here? How about those people that we would consider to be among Jesus' closest friends? How did they address him?:

As he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. And a great storm developed on the sea so that the waves began to swamp the boat. But he was asleep. So they came and woke him up saying, “Lord, save us! We are about to die!” But he said to them, “Why are you cowardly, you people of little faith?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and it was dead calm. And the men were amazed and said, “What sort of person is this? Even the winds and the sea obey him!” – Matthew 8:23-27 Peter said to him, “Lord, if it is you, order me to come to you on the water.” So he said, “Come.” Peter got out of the boat, walked on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the strong wind he became afraid. And starting to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” When they went up into the boat, the wind ceased. Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.” – Matthew 14:28-33 When Jesus came to the area of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” They answered, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” – Matthew 16:13-16 On the next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is the one about whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who is greater than I am, because he existed before me.’ – John 1:29-30 Thomas said, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way?” – John 14:5 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be content.” – John 14:8 “Lord,” Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “what has happened that you are going to reveal yourself to us and not to the world?” – John 14:22 Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni” (which means Teacher). – John 20:16 Mary Magdalene came and informed the disciples, “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them what Jesus had said to her. – John 20:18 When it was already very early morning, Jesus stood on the beach, but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. So Jesus said to them, “Children, you don’t have any fish, do you?” They replied, “No.” He told them, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they threw the net, and were not able to pull it in because of the large number of fish. Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” – John 21:4-7 Then when they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these do?” He replied, “Yes, Lord, you know I love you.” Jesus told him, “Feed my lambs.” Jesus said a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He replied, “Yes, Lord, you know I love you.” Jesus told him, “Shepherd my sheep.” Jesus said a third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was distressed that Jesus asked him a third time, “Do you love me?” and said, “Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you.” – John 21:15-17

Now this is by no means an exhaustive search. But the pattern shown should be quite apparent. Like it or not, those that were with Jesus during his ministry here on earth understood the fact that, despite His being human, He was Lord, Teacher, Christ (Messiah), and Son of God. There is no evidence that they ever uttered a cultural equivalent of “homeboy” when addressing or referencing Him.

On Plans, templates, and similarities…

Over at The Panda’s Thumb we see a post that highlights a study done on limb loss in vertebrates. John Lynch states,

An interesting article in this week's edition of Nature suggests that at least in some fish, alterations in a single gene bring about evolutionary change in the form of limb (fin) loss.

Two follow-up posts on TPT, each by P. Z. Myers, can be found here and here. In the first follow-up P. Z. states,

Some of the complicating features of developmental genetics are pleiotropy and multigenic effects: that is, that the genes required to build an organism are all tangled together in an intricate web, with multiple genes required to properly assemble each character (that's the multigenic part), and each gene having multiple effects on multiple characters (that's pleiotropy). One might think of the organism as a house of cards, each card supporting all of the cards above it, so that tinkering with any one piece leads to catastrophic collapse. This isn't the case, of course. While developing systems are all elaborately interlocked, they also exhibit modularity and surprisingly robust flexibility.

In the second follow-up P. Z. states, with regards to the idea that the modularity and robust flexibility of a system could be used as evidence of design:

Quite the contrary, I see evidence of mechanisms that permit integrated evolution of organisms, with no designer required.

He provides more detail, via his own blog Pharyngula with, Development. Evolution. Genes. Fish. What's not to like?. In it we see the following image: Essentially, what we're hearing is that the integrated complexity found within the genetic structure of these species achieved its integrated complexity through blind chance because... well... they're here aren't they? Isn't it amazing how nature has solved the problem of spitting out either limbs or fins? - all with the flip of a switch! Yet imagine the power of templates. Imagine the efficiency in using a plan that allows for minor alterations that garner major changes. Imagine a set of instructions, a code - if you will, that allows one to step through a financial accounting program and, depending on the desired outcome, run a report of actual cost expenditures by region vs. running a report of revenue by project. Shucks, I don't have to imagine it at all - I ran a set of those reports today on a piece of software designed by semi-intelligent people. On the morphological side, consider the skeletal and muscular structure of the human arm and hand. Now note a robotic arm and hand that mimics the same functional capabilities as its human counterpart. As the website for the Shadow Robot Company states, "The human hand has twenty-four powered movements. Shadow have implemented every single one, with all the power and range of movement, that the human hand has... The muscles in the upper arm and torso are analogous to the human's." Have the robotic designers used the basic structural and morphological elements of a human arm and hand as a guide for their design criteria? How about a steam rotary engine? Let’s look at the schematics for such a device. If we cross reference now with electrical rotors we find the following from Penntex: a rotor, and a stator. Cross referencing with pump rotors we find, at Seepex pumps: a universal joint Common sense tells us that there are similarities in these various human designs because they are all working off the same basic template (i.e., rotary motor design). Variances within the details are due to varying specific parameters with regards to design criteria as well as to function, materials, power supply, etc. Now compare the human artifacts with a flagellar motor per the NCBI and ARN websites: , How interesting that the components of the flagellum precisely match up with the designed components of rotary motors. Additionally, note that the work in robotics, as well as the development of the rotary motors, did not occur through blind, random chance, but through intentional, rationalistic thought processes – i.e., through design.

Another angle on Jesus being 'hip'...

Check Touchstone Magazine's blog post titled, Jesus is Cool:

Another article from the Tucson Citizen you may find of some minor interest (I found it while looking for the link to the article Phillip Johnson recommended in the next item): Jesus is Cool. It includes the quote, given by a young Episcopal priest:

Richards wears a "Jesus surfs without a board" shirt from Urban Outfitters, where you can also find a Jesus action figure. "If Jesus is so reverent that we can't laugh about him, then Jesus isn't in our everyday lives," says Richards, 28.

One can just imagine the Apostles, whose successors an Episcopal minister claims to be, wearing such t-shirts around Jerusalem in the weeks after the Resurrection. One can imagine Perpetua and Felicity ordering one to wear in the arena. One can see crowds of Sudanese Christians standing before army firing squads in such t-shirts. One can . . . oh never mind. One cannot imagine the young Mr. Richards wearing a similar t-shirt with a comic message about Martin Luther King or any feminist whatsoever, no matter how obscure. —David Mills

What is it about our culture that causes us to consider the creator of the universe just another one of the gang? UPDATE: Joe @ Evangelical Outpost links to my post, among others, as he gives his excellent take on this issue. Note his response to my question above:

Good question. The cause, in my opinion, can be traced back to American Protestantism, particularly in the popular strands of evangelicalism. As a religious movement we have almost completely abandoned the concept of a transcendent creator in favor of a God who is our “best friend.” I remember as a young Baptist how we would gloss over the commands to “fear God” in favor of singing hymns about “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”... The idea of Jesus as our “friend” is deeply rooted in our particular religious culture. Our lack of reverence expresses itself in everything from our worship to our evangelism. How many times, for instance, have we seen an earnest Christian approach someone (including us) and ask, “Do you know Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior?”

So true. Unfortunately, we all too often hear responses such as one left on his site,

I both understand and believe that Christ is our Master, King, Savior, and Lord, but he is also our friend. The Bible even declares that. There were many times when Jesus called His disciples both servants and friends also. And even in the passage that reads, "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." Like anything, this all has to be taken into context. However, it becomes clear in much of scripture that God makes it clear to us the humanity of Jesus... I work with teenagers both Christian and non-Christian... It seems to me the problem here is not the shirts... Some of the young people in the youth group I lead, wear them too. And for them it is a true expression of them. Jesus is their homeboy. He has completely transformed their lives and they'll serve Him forever. It's a cultural expression. There is a cultural aspect about this I think people miss. The hip-hop generation can't be viewed through literal glasses. Everything is a metaphor.

I think we need to distinguish between adjusting the delivery of Christianity with regards to a particular culture vs. adjusting Christianity because of a particular culture. It may very well be that the hip-hop generation views everything as a metaphor... but Christ on the Cross is not a metaphor. It is part of the reality that forms the basis for Christianity. We need to make sure we understand the reality of who Christ is. As for Jesus being our best friend or whether we know him as our personal Saviour, it might be enlightening to check the book of Acts. Greg Koukl, from Stand to Reason, has an article titled, Preaching God's Love in Acts?, in which he outlines every instance of evangelism in the book of Acts. Thirteen accounts are listed. Koukl's conclusion?

The love of God is never mentioned a single time in the entire book of Acts.

Rather, the emphasis of the messages given had to do with "forgiveness of sin by Jesus the Messiah," or "Jesus the prophesied Messiah crucified and resurrected," or "the nature of God, and the reality of judgment."

$Þǻm αהּd †hε dε†эc†iδή δf Mæהּ|ήg…

Can e-mail spam help us understand the inherent difference between deterministic decision making and rationalistic decision making? Typically, the contents of a spam’s subject field will give us an indication of the message contained in the actual e-mail. Consider these examples of spam subject lines that may grace our in-boxes:

“save munny!” “àdv=exclusive_äpplying-löans~with-cäsh out ón your home now” “V!@gra.Val|i|um.” “Save upto 1800 bukz on your favourive so0ftwarez.”

The push to sell a drug that rhymes with “niagra” seems to be relentless. In an attempt to stop this invasion of spam we may tell our e-mail system to filter out all messages that contain the word (per our rhyming example) “niagra.” But the spammers try to outwit us by sending a message in which they replace “niagra” with “n!@gra” in the subject field. Our e-mail filter program cannot ascertain that the intended meaning of “ni@gra” is equivalent to that of “niagra.” We may respond by telling our anti-spam filter to stop all e-mail that contains “n??gra,” “*gra,” and “niag*,” in which our use of the wildcard “?” and “*” characters attempts to circumvent the variant spellings of “niagra.” But, once again, the spammers can easily respond with “ni ag ra,” “n.i.a.g.r.a,” or “nye-ag-rah.” In virtually every case, we are able to ascertain the intended meaning of the spammer’s message, whereas the software, operating purely by the determinism of the simple instructions we have given it, will not. This becomes even more interesting when one looks at some of the more complex methods that anti-spam software programs use to filter out spam e-mail. Companies such as BrightMail enlist the use of sophisticated algorithms in their attempt to achieve a 99.9999% accuracy rating in filtering spam. Let’s step back for a moment and look at the process that is going on here: attempts are made by spammers to design e-mail messages in such a way as to allow them to pass through a filter, which has been designed by an anti-spammer in such a way as to block said e-mail messages. Note the manner in which BrightMail describes the process:

“Maintaining high effectiveness rates over time is challenging because spammers are constantly motivated to evade filters. Spammers… continually change their tactics, and time their attacks strategically within narrow dissemination windows. Their sophisticated tools create new spamming techniques, such as the randomization of headers and bodies. For these reasons, many solutions work well for the first few months but then their performance starts to deteriorate. In order to be consistently effective over the long run, an anti-spam solution must be responsive to these changes in attacks and methodologies.” “BrightSig™ technology is the cornerstone of Brightmail’s signature technology. When messages flow into the BLOC, they are compressed using proprietary algorithms into a unique “signature,” which is added to the database of known spam. Using this signature, BrightSig groups and matches seemingly random messages that originated from a single attack. Effective grouping allows Brightmail to create tight, targeted rules without having to write numerous such rules against a single attack. By distilling a complex and evolving attack to its DNA, more spam can be deflected with a single rule. As spammers adapted to BrightSig filtering, Brightmail introduced the next generation signature technology, BrightSig2. BrightSig2 has specific defenses against HTML-based spam, combating randomization and HTML noise (comments, constants, bad tags) that spammers insert to evade filters.”

At first glance, phrases such as evolving, adapting, randomization and, attack to its DNA, make it appear as if the spam / anti-spam process is a good analog to Darwinian Evolution. Yet note that what is going on here is hardly natural selection occurring across random variations. Both sides, the spammers and the anti-spammers, are designing their systems to address specific types of attacks. But I veer off on a tangent… Let’s consider one of the ways in which spamming technology attempts to circumvent anti-spam filters and how it relies on the rationalistic processes found in the human mind. Were you able to recognize meaning of the title of this blog post? Only 8 of the 27 characters used are valid. How about the following line? ΛΛε דh١ήﻶς |† ∟!ќε ǻ ώæ$ε£ Although none of the characters used are valid, you can probably figure out the message. A criticism may immediately be raised regarding the fact that the invalid characters look like the very letters they are impersonating. And, someone may ask, what about the fact that we already have a good idea of the gamut of topics that spammers are likely to push on us? Aren’t we, as we decipher the message, just accepting the data that corresponds with a known word and rejecting the data that doesn’t? Well, yes, we are (and in a manner not unlike that of reading someone else’s handwriting). But that simply reiterates the point that in determining the meaning of the altered words, we are processing the information we see, correlating it with a possible existing meaning, and then coming to a rationalistic conclusion regarding its intended meaning. Note how this is qualitatively different from trying to break, say, a cryptographer’s code. With an encrypted code, such as in wartime, the intent of the sender is to insure that no one but the recipient understands the message. Such a code is typically structured with a set of deterministically based rules that only the sender and recipient are privy to. The message is coded with the intent that, if it were to be received by anyone other than the intended recipient, its meaning would not be readily apparent. In the world of spamming, the opposite is true. The message is coded in such a manner as to (hopefully) pass through a deterministic filter, and yet still be understood by a casual recipient. Such a code does not necessarily have to follow a set of deterministically based rules but, rather, relies on the mind’s ability to interpret the coded data with regards to form, context, phonetics, etc. For the spammer, the letter “a” can be designated by any one of the following characters: “@,” “ǻ,” or “α.” Through the interpretive process, within the context of the passage, the mind is able to conclude that any one of these characters actually designates an “a.” A software program, on the other hand, is forced to rely strictly on the direction given from the algorithms within its written code. One rub is that even though “@,” “ǻ,” and “α” are all interpreted to mean “a,” they each have their own unique meaning (separate from the letter “a”). Another rub is that “ή.i.αgrα”, for example, is the incorrect spelling of “niagra.” Even though we know what the spammer meant, the actual word used is wrong – and we know that it is wrong. Okay, so all we’ve done is show that humans can understand the meaning of an e-mail subject line that may slip through a software filter. It doesn’t prove anything since we already know that e-mail is generated by intelligent design (for the most part). But is that all we’ve done? Consider the argument that a specific meaning is unrecognizable to a deterministically based analysis program unless the program is instructed, through its code, to recognize the meaning as such. The program makes its choices strictly on the results of its deterministic algorithms. With the human mind, that is not the case. The very qualities of the spam subject line that cause it to slip through the deterministic filter are what allow us to understand the intended meaning of the message! In fact, check the process that BrightMail uses to maintain an accuracy rate of 99.9999% that spam e-mail doesn’t make it into your mailbox:

“What is your accuracy rate? 99.9999% How do you maintain this rate? Automated safeguards are built into the technology. For example, rules are tested against a legitimate mail database Manual safeguards protect against overaggressive rules Support for false positive submissions from Brightmail’s user community—300 million strong— inform Brightmail as soon as possible Human review of every false positive received”

דhα†’$ r¦ﻍh†, hựmǻהּ rεv|εώ.

Defining your gender...

In School's No-Bias Wording Gets OK, we read about a school district in southern California that had come close to losing state funding because a majority of board members opposed the wording of the state's anti-discrimination policy. We read:

The three, who form a majority on the Westminster board, have cited their Christian beliefs in insisting that the district not adopt word-for-word a state policy that allows students and staff members to define their own gender... California Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell announced Monday that the modified policy the board adopted last week technically complies with state law that protects gays, as well as transsexuals and others who do not conform to traditional gender roles... For months, she and fellow trustees Helena Rutkowski and Blossie Marquez-Woodcock rejected the wording of the state law that allows students and teachers to define their own gender when making a discrimination complaint.

Where does it stop? If we, as individuals, have the ability to define our own gender, then why not define our own race? How about redefining our species? Maybe our phyla? Better yet, how about redefining who we are? Cross reference the concern expressed over these board members with the L.A. Times article, As Hate-Crime Concerns Rise, So Does the Threat of Hoaxes.

Oh Please!...

Duke University cuts out 8 a.m. classes

Duke University is eliminating 8 a.m. classes and trying to come up with other ways help its sleep-deprived students, who too often are struggling to survive on a mix of caffeine, adrenaline and ambition. The school is also considering new orientation programs this fall that would help freshmen understand the importance of sleep.

How about this alternative? If they don't show up for class... they fail.

On April 20th...